Rules: The Building Blocks of Games

Board games to sports, digital games to party games, gambling to role-playing, all games share one thing in common: rules. But what, in fact, are rules, and how do they work? In this talk, game scholars Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola discuss how rules constitute games through five foundational types, covering topics ranging from official formal rules to social and cultural norms, and from external regulation of play to how rules are embodied in gaming implements. The talk is based on the speakers' recent book: The Rule Book: Building Blocks of Games.